


Four time Sakaki Yusho tried to be a father and failed

by clockwork_spider



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, yusho is delusional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:45:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8062237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockwork_spider/pseuds/clockwork_spider
Summary: But things turned out fine anyway.





	

“I became the president of Leo Corporation so I can stop my father's ambition.“

Akaba Leo’s son was an imposing young man, with steely gaze and the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. He stood like a military general, back straight and eyes forward, as he spoke about dimensions and Academia. And all Sakaki Yusho could think of was "children shouldn’t have to grow up so fast.”

The look on the young Akaba’s face disagreed, and Yusho was reminded of a younger Leo, of the young man that didn’t know the definition of limit. And perhaps he’s gotten old over the years. So he thought “children shouldn’t have to grow up so fast.”

That night, Sakaki Yusho left to have a father-to-father talk with Leo. Because if anything, Yusho was a believer of smiles, and a believer of family. And before him stood a boy, barely older than Yuuya, pleading for his help with a serious look on his face.

All he wanted was to see the kid smile.

* * *

When he was met with the young Academia general, he thought, “I wonder if Yuuya has gotten this tall.”

The child had the same look as Akaba’s son, grim, determined. Children, once made into soldiers, could not be unmade.

But Yusho was a believer, and he thought, if only I could make this kid smile.

* * *

As Dennis’s papery remains blew into his hand, Yusho found that he couldn’t smile.

There was a smile on Dennis’s face in the card.

What good did smiles do for him?

* * *

“When you feel like crying, just smile,” he use to tell his son. It’s been years since he last saw Yuuya.

He wondered if Yuuya was still smiling.

He wondered if Yuuya was forced to grow up while he was away, like Akaba’s son. Would he return to the steely gaze of the young Akaba? The desperate viciousness of Edo Phoenix? The false laughter of Denis Macfield? 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have told Yuuya to smile. Shouldn’t have told a child to do something he could not even do himself.

It’d only be so long before a child loses the ability to cry.

* * *

He held Yuuya in his arm, strong and victorious and smiling and crying at the same time. And Yuuya was brave, and kind, and smiled and cried when his father couldn’t.

And alongside his son was Edo Pheonix, laughing and carefree.

And Akaba’s son was there, allowing himself a small smile, not for their shared victory, but for Yuuya’s happiness.

Sakaki Yusho knows that children will always grow up too fast.

Perhaps that’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Please point out canon inconsistencies if there are any.


End file.
